


The Smell of Old Books

by Dreamin



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: F/M, Prompt Fill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-11
Updated: 2018-09-11
Packaged: 2019-07-10 22:56:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15959336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dreamin/pseuds/Dreamin
Summary: Sometimes, something as simple as a book can bring two people together.





	The Smell of Old Books

**Author's Note:**

  * For [afteriwake](https://archiveofourown.org/users/afteriwake/gifts).



> Inspired by a prompt from afteriwake -- "Mollcroft, old books in a bookstore."

Mycroft walked into the bookstore and inhaled deeply. He loved the smell of old books. He’d never admit it to anyone, he barely admitted it to himself, but he missed the library at Musgrave Hall, even after all these years. _Someday,_ he vowed, _I’ll have a finer house than Musgrave Hall, with an even larger library._

The twenty-one-year-old then proceeded to get happily lost in the History section.

An hour later, he was thumbing through a biography of Cleopatra VII when a soft, small voice interrupted him.

“Excuse me, sir?”

He looked up to see a girl in dingy trainers, torn and faded jeans, a sweatshirt much too big for her small frame with a large picture of a cat’s face on it, and her long, lank brown hair in a ponytail, but it was her eyes that kept him from dismissing her and going back to the book. They were big, brown, and full of intelligence that made him believe that she was a bit older than she looked, maybe thirteen or fourteen instead of eleven or twelve.

“Yes?” he asked, curious.

“Can you help me, please?” She pointed to a book on the top shelf, high above her head. “Can you get the one about Jack the Ripper down? I can’t reach and there aren’t any stools around.”

One eyebrow raised at her choice in reading material, he nevertheless reached up and grabbed the book then offered it to her. “Your book, my lady.”

She took it, giggling. “I’m a girl, not a lady.”

He smiled a bit. “It’s a term of respect, just as you called me ‘sir.’”

“If you say so,” she said, grinning. “Thank you.” She turned and walked away, clutching the book to her chest like it was already a prized possession.

* * *

Twenty years later, Mycroft was perusing the library of his elegant mansion when his eyes landed on a familiar book. Pulling the Jack the Ripper biography off the shelf, he started flipping through it, the old book smell bringing to mind a singular girl he wouldn’t meet again until many years later. The memory made him smile, as did the words written inside the front cover.

_Molly Hooper, September 10 th, 1994_

“You know,” his amused wife said behind him, “I didn’t recognize you the second time we met.”

Mycroft chuckled as he turned to face her. “The first time we met, I was still going through my ‘jeans and jumper’ phase.”

Molly nodded, understanding. “You were trying to fit in.”

“Yes. That lasted until the end of the semester, when I realized that I preferred to rise above the, er, riff-raff.”

She smirked at him. “I still wear jeans and jumpers, what does that make me?”

“Utterly adorable, and you know how much I detest that word normally.”

Molly grinned as she pulled him down for a kiss.


End file.
